1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of information handling system audiovisual communication, and more particularly to white balance adjustment of an image at an information handling system.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Communication between information handling systems through high bandwidth networks has changed the way that many employees work by making the home office a virtual extension of an employer's office building. Employees working through high bandwidth Internet communications can access documents and e-mail communications from home as readily as from an office location. Employers have recognized that leveraging home office environments by migrating employees to work remotely from home offices provides a number of benefits. One benefit is the reduced costs of maintaining an office environment by sharing offices between employees who also work from home so that less office space is needed for a given number of employees. Another benefit is that employees appreciate the flexibility offered by the use of home offices, including reduced commute times and expenses. With improvements in video conferencing capabilities, employees can often avoid travel to the office even when meetings require their presence by attending the meetings through video conferencing. Many portable information handling systems integrate a camera and microphone so that users can readily engage in videoconferencing anywhere that network access is available.
One difficulty with remote communications by videoconferencing is that home offices or other remote locations tend to have a wide variance of lighting conditions that generally are substantially inferior to office infrastructure lighting. Office infrastructure lighting tends to have evenly distributed top down fluorescent lighting. Cameras integrated into information handling systems or otherwise used for videoconferencing tend to use white balance solutions to adjust the image captured based upon all of the light in the field of view. White balance works well with office environment lighting conditions that spread light through the field of view by using evenly distributed overhead lights. White balance solutions present a challenge for home video conferencing in home office environments that do not have evenly distributed lighting. For example, low lighting conditions or light “hotspots” tend to throw off white balance so that the image captured by a camera has a low quality. A light hotspot is created when a single light fixture stands out in the field of view, such as a lamp illuminating behind an individual whose image is captured by a camera. As another example, a single light fixture in the center of a room ceiling will create unbalanced light at a desk placed against a wall. A user's face in such a situation is often in a shadow so that illuminated white or bright objects behind the user and in more direct light will influence white or exposure balance of the camera. The reduced exposure of the user's face will provide a poor image quality even with good quality imaging software and hardware components.